The History of Ducati

In the year of its acquisition, Ducati sold more than 44,000 units, generating turnover of some 480 million euro – its best ever financial performance, based primarily on stronger US sales. Prior to that year the company – known in Italy as “la rossa” because its bikes are predominantly sold in red – had engaged upon a campaign to cut costs and refresh its model range, as well as paving the way for future growth in Asia by building a plant in Thailand. Under the Volkswagen Group umbrella, Ducati operates as an autonomous brand within the Audi AG unit, aiming to build on its market position as a premium sports motorcycle manufacturer and exploit its know-how in light-weight construction and engine development.

The characteristic sound of the red racing machine stems from the Ducati’s two-cylinder engine featuring desmodromic valves. This fully controlled valve movement technology, which prevents loss of power at high revs, originated from car racing and was first deployed by Ducati in 1956 in its 125 Desmo model. The composite word desmodromic comes from the ancient Greek words desmos (meaning “bond” or “knot“) and dromos (meaning “track” or “way”). The term incorporates the major characteristic of the valves as being continuously bound to the camshaft while also denoting their primary application in the motorsport arena. This was how Ducati established the foundations for its global reputation as a sports brand, as racing Ducatis featuring desmodromic valves surged ahead of their strong competitors in the period after 1956. In 1968 the company began deploying the technology in its production models too. Despite its successes in engineering development and in the motorsport world, Ducati has had a somewhat chequered history in terms of its ownership.

The present-day company can trace its roots back to a business founded by brothers Adriano, Bruno and Marcello Ducati together with a number of other investors in Bologna. Registered on July 4th, 1926, with its address in via Collegio di Spagna 9 in the heart of Bologna’s old city, “Società Scientifica Radio Brevetti Ducati” made capacitors for radios. The company’s products were based on a patent held by the eldest brother Adriano, who had already made a name for himself while a physics student with his short-wave radio experiments. The first major order, for the Argentinian market, acquired by the business in the Autumn of 1926 was in fact produced before the move to dedicated premises, in the basement of the family home, the Villa Lydia, at viale Guidotti 51 in Bologna.

Ten years later the company had established a 12 hectare manufacturing facility on an industrial site in the western suburbs of Bologna at Borgo Panigale, which is still Ducati’s home today. The foundations for the new plant were laid on June 1, 1935, and from that date on the business enjoyed rapid growth, making both capacitors and radios. Employing 3,500 people, the progressive complex included canteens, kitchens, leisure and healthcare facilities. Ducati expanded its production in the pre-war era, doubling its workforce. From 1938 it began making cameras, optical lenses, cash registers and electric shavers in addition to radios. Sales offices in London, Paris, New York, Sydney and Caracas underscored the company’s export drive.

The survival of the Ducati firm, and its establishment of a motorcycle manufacturing business, was primarily down to the involvement of the original Società Scientifica Radio Brevetti Ducati in the production of a four-stroke auxiliary motor with a two-speed gearbox developed by SIATA (Società Italiana Applicazioni Tecniche Auto-Aviatorie). The motor, conceived back in the wartime period, was intended to bring power to Italy’s most important post-war means of transport: the bicycle. Fitted with the small clip-on motor, driving the wheels via the chain, a bicycle could be turned into a simple yet speedy vehicle: the moped. The small but efficient engine named Cucciolo (meaning puppy; cub; f ledgling; or also “greenhorn”) went into production in May 1945 in Turin. But SIATA was reaching the limits of its in-house production capacity, and in March 1946 contracted Ducati to make the moped engine. At the Milan trade fair in September 1946, Ducati’s engineers presented a higher-powered version of the Cucciolo. The first Cucciolo engine designed completely by Ducati went into production in Borgo Panigale in 1948. It was enthusiastically taken up by motorcycle racers, helping them to a string of victories in Italy’s popular road races.

The company’s engineers continually enhanced the engine’s performance, designing dedicated frames and building the first mopeds of their own, with 55 to 65 cc capacity. As a result, by 1954 Ducati had progressed from being merely a SIATA component supplier to become an independent motorcycle manufacturer. Fabio Taglioni (1920-2001) joined the company on May 1st, 1954. Taking up the challenge of meeting the demand for ever more powerful motorcycles, the highly skilled engineer quickly rose to become chief designer at the Borgo Panigale works. 

Taglioni it was who designed the Marianna, a single-cylinder Gran Sport with 100 cc capacity and featuring an overhead camshaft, with which Ducati enjoyed major success in the tough competition of Italian long-distance racing in 1955. The open-bottom frame design, with the engine acting as a load-bearing element, was to provide the basis for many later models with capacities up to 350 cc. The company’s sustained successes on the race track boosted sales and drove mass production volumes, providing Taglioni with a free hand to utilise costly new engineering solutions. In 1956, Taglioni developed the Desmo 125 for the motorcycle Grand Prix circuit. Featuring three camshafts and desmodromic valve control, the bike delivered very high revs without suffering the feared power loss due to valve wobble. On July 15, 1956 the new Ducati caused a storm by lapping the entire rest of the field in winning the Swedish Grand Prix.

Sporting success did not bring an economic upturn however. By the late 1950s the demand in Italy was increasingly turning to small cars and, like all motorcycle manufacturers, Ducati was hit by a sales crisis on its key home market. The company – still under state control – switched its attentions to export markets. In 1957, Mototrans began making Ducati motorcycles under licence in Spain. Ducati opened up a distribution network in the USA, while a major order from Switzerland secured production at the Borgo Panigale works for the time being. Recognising commercial necessity, the company’s management took the decision to end its cost-intensive racing activities.

In 1963, importer Berliner acquired a contract for Ducati to build a motorcycle for police forces in the USA. But the project – codenamed Apollo – failed because the load-bearing capacity of the tyre material was insufficient to transmit the engine power reliably onto the road. The four-cylinder unit nevertheless served as a template for the ongoing development of high-capacity two-cylinder engines. These were key to the advancement of the brand during the 1970s, as was the introduction of the desmodromic valve control system into production bikes from 1968 onwards. With the two cylinders offset at right angles, this design minimised engine vibration while at the same time enabling optimum cooling. It provided Ducati with the capability for a successful return to the race circuit.